Pete Brown: The deeper meaning of cask

Cask beer, cask ale, real ale, hand-pulled ale… when we can't even agree what to call the stuff, the revitalisation of Britain's national drink is remarkable.

As the author of The Cask Report (formerly known as The Intelligent Choice Report), I've followed this journey closely. The headline of the first report in 2007 was that, far from being in terminal decline, cask ale was shrinking by no more than the average percentage fall in the total beer market - it was doing no worse than any other beer style. At the time, this "not quite as rubbish as you thought" headline was seen as a positive story.

Twelve months later, we reported that cask ale was actually outperforming most other beer styles, with a rate of decline that was significantly lower than any other beer apart from stout. This was seen as really good news. But we were still saying cask ale was not doing quite as badly as everything else - we weren't able to say it was actually growing.

The third report was launched on October 5 this year. When we were pulling it together, we knew we still wouldn't be able to say cask ale was growing - with record pub closures, the recession and the Chancellor's inexplicable, blind hostility to beer and pubs, it simply wasn't possible that cask ale could improve year on year.

So we were stunned to see that, although still showing fractional decline on a year-on-year basis, in the first six months of 2009, cask beer grew volume in four out of six months, equating to one per cent growth in the six months overall. If current trends continue, 2009 will be the year that cask ale returns to volume growth - in the midst of the worst recession for generations.

All the data told us the same story - cask ale has recruited 400,000 new drinkers year on year. The number of women drinking it has doubled. The number of breweries in the UK is booming, beer festivals are boasting record attendance, and CAMRA membership has passed the 100,000 mark, having almost doubled over the decade.

What's in it for you?

There's just one catch: this is all great news if you're a cask ale brewer or drinker. But what does it actually mean for the publican?

News of cask ale's increasingly rude health is often met with indifference or even anger by some people seeking to make a living running pubs. What's in it for them? Why should they stock it?

Victim of its own success

One brewer told us that his beer was "too successful" as a guest beer and was therefore being delisted. The problem was that it was cheaper than other beers on the bar, so when it went on, and people drank it instead of those other beers, the licensee was losing money (apparently it never occurred to the licensee that if it was so popular, he might be able to increase the price relative to other beers.)

Another brewer told us that they can't get any listings in the pubs of the town they're based in, because the business development manager of a major pubco that owns most of the outlets believes there is no future in cask ale - even as his chief operating officer wrote the foreword for last year's Cask Report, talking about how vital cask ale was to his business.

The fundamental problem is that cask beer has a lower margin than other beers. And margin is vital.

So the challenge for this year's report was to justify why this should be of interest to the average publican in need of every penny of profit they can get.

And I believe we've succeeded. Where it's kept and served well, cask ale creates a value chain throughout the business, which means that even though it sells at a lower price, it increases total pub turnover and profitability. Here's how.

There are two key things to know about the cask beer drinker: firstly, they are on average more affluent than other drinkers, at an age with higher salaries and fewer large financial commitments. They are more likely to say they are 'comfortable' or 'coping' on their current level of income than other drinkers.

Well, that's fine, but who says they're going to spend this money in the pub? Key fact number two: cask beer is only available in pubs - or any other establishment with ideal cellar conditions. Cask ale drinkers know this, and that's why they visit the pub more frequently than other drinkers. Of course they drink bottled ales at home, but only the pub offers the true cask experience. Forty per cent of cask ale drinkers visit pubs once a week or more, compared with only 23 per cent of non-cask drinkers.

And these drinkers don't hang out in homogenous groups. They visit pubs with partners and friends who drink wine, lager or spirits. So if you attract more cask drinkers, you attract more drinkers of other products too. And because cask drinkers are more likely to be affluent, so are their friends. Cask ale pubs sell a higher ratio of premium to standard lager, for example, than non-cask ale pubs. Cask premiumises the whole product mix.

Follow the cask drinker

In these groups, people defer to the cask drinker in choosing which pub to go to. They can get their wine or lager anywhere, but the cask drinker has to pick a pub that serves decent cask ale. And because of this, the cask drinker is recognised as knowing his pubs.

So cask drinkers have more money to spend. They visit pubs more often. They bring more people in with them. And when they're in the pub, they spend more - cask drinkers are likely to eat meals in pubs more often than other drinkers, for example.

All of which explains why cask beer makes pubs more profitable - by driving footfall and turnover. And this is why, with 52 pubs closing a week, pubs that stock good cask ale are proven to be closing at a significantly slower rate than the market as a whole.

Cask ale is not a cure-all. It's not right for every pub. And it's a bit of extra work. But if you have the right facilities and the right customer base nearby, can you afford not to stock it? n

• For more details, visit www.caskreport.com/​